CANAL WINCHESTER, Ohio (WCMH)-From the pop of a baseball hitting a glove to the crack of a bat.

“It meant life to him,” 11-year-old A.J. Raber shared of his friend, 14-year-old Brock “B-Rock” Johnson. Johnson recently died after a long struggle with a rare autoimmune disease.
“I was good friends with him. I saw him at the batting cages. Saw him at practice,” Raber said.

He even remembers seeing his friend pick up a bat to practice right after one of his many stays in the hospital. “Yeah, he was a great kid,” Raber said.
So great that the courage Brock exemplified during his final days on earth left quite the imprint. “He was such an old soul for a kid. I mean, he just got it,” shared Brock’s Father Terry Johnson.

You could see what his father Johnson meant; almost everywhere you turned at the inaugural BrockStrong Baseball Tournament in Canal Winchester. Whether it was Brocks favorite scripture (2 Timothy: 4:7), or one of his original quotes like “You have your bad days and you have your good days and you just gotta fight.”

The 14-year-old has left behind a legacy that touched hundreds of people who donated to the Brockstrong Foundation.

More than 160 volunteers pitched in to help run the baseball tournament that raised thousands of dollars to help teachers, youth baseball players on travel leagues, and families dealing with sick children at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

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